Ole Bouman is the director of the Netherlands Architecture Institute, globally the largest institute of its kind. Prior to this appointment he was the editor-in-chief of Volume, the independent magazine for architecture, and has also been the director of Archis Foundation. Bouman has a track record in writing, curating and teaching in a variety of fields. His publications include the encyclopedic manifesto The Invisible in Architecture (co-author, 1994) and The Battle for Time (2003, in Dutch). He was one of the curators of Manifesta 3 (2000) and the Archis RSVP event series. He taught and lectured at various schools worldwide, and currently he is a lecturer at MIT.

Reaching the Summit

Ole Bouman on redemption through nature

What would you consider your most notable experience taking an architectural pilgrimage, be it to a building, a site or a city?Traveling is not the whole story. Pilgrimage is much more than traveling. It is about suffering. It is about sacrifice. And, if successful, it is not just about enjoyment. It is not even about fulfillment. It is about redemption.The question of pilgrimage is a religious one. It can never end just by recognition of the object. The time that passes since you have embarked is part of the experience. The longer and tougher the journey, the more intense the redemption can be. I guess this is not a fact but a perception.Not many buildings did this to me. Pantheon. Le Thoronet Abbey. Places where humanity obviously transcended itself. But perhaps nothing is more telling for me than biking up to mountaintops like Mont Ventoux or Gran San Bernardino, looking down to the valleys, and realizing how far people can go beyond themselves.